See What I Mean
Summary: Buffy and Angel. Sometimes, a tragedy is too much and a heart can't survive it.
Author's Note: This story is based on the "Broken Heart Syndrome" where if someone's loved one dies, the emotion damage is causes can harm one's heart. Hopkins scientists discover that emotional shock can trigger sudden, reversible heart failure that is not a classic heart attack.
Shocking news, such as learning of the unexpected death of a loved one, has been known to cause catastrophic events, such as a heart attack.
"Bottom line is even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what, are we helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come, can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are...You'll see what I mean."
There is something that I see
In the way you look at me
There's a smile, there's a truth in your eyesIt is you I have loved all along
But an unexpected way
On this unexpected day
Could it mean this is where I belong
It's no more mystery
It is finally clear to me
You're the home my heart searched for so long
And it is you I have loved all along
There were times I ran to hide
Afraid to show the other side
Alone in the night without you
But now I know just who you are
And I know you hold my heart
Finally this is where I belong
It is you I have loved all along
It's no more mystery
It is finally clear to me
You're the home my heart searched for so long
And it is you I have loved all along
Over and over
I'm filled with emotion
Your love, it rushes through my veins
And I am filled
With the sweetest devotion
As I, I look into your perfect face
It's no more mystery
It is finally clear to me
You're the home my heart searched for so long
And it is you I have loved
It is you I have loved
It is you I have loved all along
-Dana Glover - It Is You (I Have Loved)
Whistler's POV
Their ending was rather poetic, as was their entire story. You'll see what I mean.
Buffy and Angel. The two souls that can never really be together. The vampire and the slayer. These two were never meant to fall in love let alone make a relationship work. But they did fall in love, and even attempt at the relationship for a time. These two are possibly the best pair of star-crossed lovers ever, after Romeo and Juliet. But I still believe the latter pair had it better than Buffy and Angel.
To this day, I do not believe they ever really let themselves feel how much they really felt for each other, because if they did, the love they felt would have killed them long before the circumstances did. Ultimately, love saved them.
But before we get to the ending, why don't I tell you their story? I mean, it's one for the ages this story, full of angst, deception, tears, hatred, epic battles, and apocalypses. It never lacked one thing: love. Oh, and a moment of perfect happiness that revamped the plot, literally.
The story of these two star-crossed lovers isn't a simple story. It technically dates back to the 1700s. But I'm going to give you the cliff notes since most of you already know the story. It's kind of hard to forget.
Boy gets turned to a vamp. Vamp becomes a Big Bad and kills the wrong girl. Gypsies curse vamp with a soul. Vamp is tormented with guilt for ninety years. Vamp falls in love with Vamp Slayer. Slayer gives this ensouled vamp a moment of perfect happiness. Vamp turns evil again. Vamp gets ensouled again, but not before he is sent to hell by his Slayer love. Vamp returns from hell, then leaves to give Slayer a shot a normal life.
It was supposed to end there right?
Guess again.
It was never supposed to happen this way. They were never supposed to fall in love. It wasn't supposed to go down like this. Nobody saw HER coming.
I tried to tell them that, in the end, you're always by yourself. You're all you've got. That's the point. But they really never applied. That's really important to their ending. In their end, or just one of their ends, they were alone. But together they were strong, divided they were weak.
The beginning of their end started with the Key. Dawn. I never really saw that coming either. But I did know this slayer was going to have it tough. She died for her sister. That love, that strength made her more than just a slayer. Buffy Summers gave up her life, literally dove into death to save a loved one, even if it was never really true. Her death was just the beginning.
Angel. When Willow told him, well… he was lost. His soul mate died. And he wasn't there with her, to fight with her, or die along side her. That was the problem.
He tried not to become weak. Angel tried to keep fighting the good fight. But at some point, he stopped fighting for redemption, and started fighting for peace. A sense of peace that only Buffy could fill.
Angel continued to live, even though she died, because he knew she would want him to. She saved him, and he couldn't let her down, he couldn't let evil win. His mission meant to much, he was trying to make amends for his evil, so he could be with her when he was done. But in his heart, he felt like he lost the reason he was really fighting.
Until one night, when trying to save that young girl in a dark alley, another evil got the best of him. When he was stabbed in the chest with the stake, he wasn't turned to dust. He fell to the ground and bled. Bled for his Buffy that no longer lived, for all of the lives he stole when the demon ruled him limbs, for all of the tears that we cried because of him. And as soon as his heart had begun to beat again, it stopped.
Her spirit was there. Calming him, soothing him, loving him. Allowing him to pass peacefully to heaven to finally join her. Happiness was fleeting, but now theirs was eternal, finally.
Fate can be a real bastard. Oddly cruel in its own way.
The next day, Willow and the Scooby gang raised Buffy. Just as Angel and Buffy had said their Hellos in heaven, she was pulled away and tugged back into her own personal hell on earth.
Weeks passed. But ultimately, when she found the truth, that she really had been in heaven where Angel was now, without her, her body no longer allowed her to live. That emotional shock cause irreversible damage to her heart, and she passed one night after a dream that was just too perfect to wake up from.
It truly fit that no demon took Buffy from this world. She was an incredibly strong woman who fought to the end because she had something worth fight for. Hope was usually on her side. But not this time. When someone gives up hope, they give up everything. They have nothing left in them.
'When I kiss you, I want to die.'
It fits that Buffy Summers died of a Broken Heart.
But it's okay, she's back in heaven, where her Angel can finally taken her in the light.
See what I mean? Death wasn't the end for them, it was their reward. It was their beginning. I really never saw that coming.
A/N: Love it? Hate it? If you didn't shed a tear I didn't do my job. Sorry if you hate that.